11.2.2.2 - Example: Summarized Data, Different Proportions

Example: Roulette Section

An American roulette wheel contains 38 slots: 18 red, 18 black, and 2 green. A casino has purchased a new wheel and they want to know if there is convincing evidence that the wheel is unfair. They spin the wheel 100 times and it lands on red 44 times, black 49 times, and green 7 times.

Use Minitab to conduct a hypothesis test to address this question. 

We'll go through each of the steps in the hypotheses test:

Step 1: Check assumptions and write hypotheses

If the wheel is 'fair' then the probability of red and black are both 18/38 and the probability of green is 2/38.

\(H_0\colon p_{red}=\dfrac{18}{38}, p_{black}=\dfrac{18}{38}, p_{green}=\dfrac{2}{38}\)
\(H_a\colon\) at least one \(p_i\) is not as specified in the null

We can use the null hypothesis to check the assumption that all expected counts are at least 5.

\(Expected\;count=n (p_i)\)

With n = 100 we meet the assumptions needed to use Chi-square.

Step 2: Compute the test statistic

Let's use Minitab to calculate this.

First, enter the summarized data into a Minitab Worksheet.

 

C1

C2

 

Color

Count

1

Red

44

2

Black

49

3

Green

7

  1. After entering the data, select Stat > Tables > Chi-Square Goodness of Fit Test (One Variable)
  2. Double-click Count to enter it into the Observed Counts box
  3. Double-click Color to enter it into the Category names (optional) box
  4. For Test select Input constants
  5. Select Proportions specified by historical counts (this is what we would expect if the null was true)
  6. Enter 18/38 for Black, 2/38 for Green and 18/38 for Red
  7. Click OK

This should result in the following output:

Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit Test: Count

Observed and Expected Counts

Category

Observed

Historical Counts

Test
Proportion

Expected

Contribution
to Chi-Sq

Red

44

18

0.473684

47.3684

0.239532

Black

49

18

0.473684

47.3684

0.056199

Green

7

2

0.052632

5.2632

0.573158

Chi-Square Test

N

DF

Chi-Sq

P-Value

100

2

0.868889

0.648

The test statistic is a Chi-Square of 0.87.

Step 3: Determine the p-value

The p-value from the output is 0.648.
 

Step 4: Make a decision

\(p>0.05\) therefore we fail to reject the null hypothesis.

Step 5: State a "real world" conclusion

There is not enough evidence to state that this roulette wheel is unfair.